AMD Phenom 9600 Review - PAGE 14

Surprisingly enough, the memory controller. Heck, the reported TLB errata may have had something else to do with it as well.

When I initially set the board up, I tried to use our trusty Corsair PC2-8888 modules that I know work at up to 1111MHz at default timings, and up to about 1080MHz at 4-4-4-12 timing. The idea was not to be limited by the memory.

I spent over an hour trying to get them to work, and gave up in disgust. Since some motherboards I've tested in the past have had problems with DIMM's that require a default voltage over 1.9V, I put in a pair of Corsair PC2-5400's that I knew work at up 10 1000-4-4-4-12 - and finally I was able to get reliable operation at stock settings. CPU-Z reported some insane 119-1-3-3-5 setting, but I wrote that off to the utility not being Phenom aware.

The memory benchmark results were... sad.

Eventually I managed to get somewhat better memory results, but I have a nagging suspicion that the BIOS on the board I was using is not using the modules in dual channel mode - as previous Athlon's I tested were able to obtain significantly higher memory performance.

To get the system stable when overclocked, I had to boost Vcore to 1.4375, raise Vdimm to 2.1V, and set the memory to 766-4-4-4-12 2T

I persisted, and eventually I was able to get a stable system with settings of 11.5x230 with memory running at 766-4-4-4-12 2T

But CPU-Z and the BIOS said it was what I set it for... 11.5x230 766-4-4-4-12.

*Shrug*

It was at least a 15% overclock; possibly 20%, and the system was stable at 2.65GHz (or is it 2.75?)

The performance was quite decent, but it did not blow me away - remember, I just finished overclocking the highly overclockable Penryn QX9650 and QX9770's, so the numbers I was seeing did not impress me - and I am a staunch AMD fan.

Power Consumption

I guess I have become spoiled by Penryn's and other lower powered Intel parts.

Unfortunately I don't have power consumption figures from my previous QX6700 review, so the closest figures I had were from my recent Xeon X3210 review - and the Xeon wins hands down.

Conclusion

We wish to thank NCIX for lending us the Phenom 9600 and motherboard we used in this review.

Testing the Phenom 9600 has been interesting.

The BIOS and CPU-Z agreed on the speed of the processor, but AMD's Overdrive utility showed the "actual" speed as being roughly 5% faster than what the processor was set for. Regardless, at either 2.65GHz nor 2.75GHz the Phenom turned in some decent numbers, but frankly it could not touch the overclocked Intel results.

The office results for Phenom were outstanding, however Phenom is not at this point capable of matching Intel parts clock-per-clock in performance.

There is no doubt that it is an interesting piece of technology; and AMD's initial pricing for it does give it a chance for some market penetration.

Personally, I would not hesitate to recommend a Phenom 9600 to someone who could use it to upgrade an existing Socket AM2 system. Getting a quad core processor for around $250-$280 for an existing single or dual core Socket AM2 system - without having to change anything else except updating the BIOS - is an excellent deal (provided such a BIOS update were available).

However, I cannot recommend getting a Phenom at this time for new system builds, nor for enthusiasts and overclockers; at least not at the current prices. A Socket 775 Xeon X3210 will easily outrun the Phenom 9600 the vast majority of the time, even at stock speeds, and it has far greater overclocking headroom for enthusiasts - and it costs about $15 less.

In case you are wondering, I did not compare the Phenom to the new QX9650 quad core Penryn parts as they are at vastly different price points (the latter being MUCH more expensive), and comparing apples to pumpkins is not a fair comparison.

Now before you think that this review is too negative, there are a couple of silver linings to all the clouds:

The Phenom does offer a quick and easy way of giving a good performance boost to existing AM2 motherboards; as long as BIOS support for it is forthcoming - it is much cheaper to drop in a Phenom than do a whole system rebuild.

You can bet that AMD is working like crazy to fix the TLB issues and to further improve clock rates. They have to, in order to stay competitive.

I guess I am disappointed in Phenom after all the hype; but considering it on its own merits, its a decent upgrade.

Comments

Glad you like the system; as I found in my last Phenom motherboard review, the HD3300 does indeed work pretty well for resolutions up to 1024x768, even better when you add a 3450 and enable Hybrid CrossFireX.

hi, i just got a gateway with a phenom 9600 4gb ram hd3200 on board graphics (not sure what mother board but is similar to gigabyte) and my phenom works fine. i play game slike biohazard with no probs and its on board graphics i use. i waych hd movies and convert movies and play music etc and it runs smooth(46%cpu usage). maybe its the combinations?????wat u guys think

hi, i just got a gateway with a phenom 9600 4gb ram hd3200 on board graphics (not sure what mother board but is similar to gigabyte) and my phenom works fine. i play game slike biohazard with no probs and its on board graphics i use. i waych hd movies and convert movies and play music etc and it runs smooth(46%cpu usage). maybe its the combinations?????wat u guys think

Intel is just cleaning house with their core 2 architecture. AMD still claims that you must use their processors with a complete spider platform to see some decent numbers. But you never see any benchmarks to test that theory. Intel is just at the top right now, plain and simple. AMD just has to play the catch up game like Intel did for the past little while before now.

I have the M2N32-SLI DELUXE, Fedora8, and wondered how I might really gain from upgrading to the 9600. I see that you compared to that board, but not with the AM2+ part. Since it's currently mainly an upgrade price point, could you include an upgrade box in your followup?

The problem is that most other manufacturers are not ready to have their boards sent to reviewers. Of course to customers and stores they always say they have boards coming into the channel but in reality its not always so.

I was having this exact same conversation with Bill too: MSI isn't known for the highest overclocking boards and I suspected the board was a huge limitation. Still.. the chip's poor memory performance has nothing to do with the motherboard and that will affect any memory sensitive app - INCLUDING many of the more scaleable games (ie Quake engine)

Wel thankyou for claering that up then. sorry for the rude comments, but lately a lot of reveiwing sites have been using demos to review games... so it's just been getting to me. The fac that the board had problems supporting a 1.8v was kinda sad, meaning the board wasn't up to par... I kinda wish that they had supplied a better board. facing it against an Asus gold isn't really something fair especially if it won't support the same memory sticks.

I hate to say it, but the reason it got held down was the mobo. That was a notorisly bad overclocker and guess what, it held true. You should have tried a higher end board. And I'm sick and tired of people reviewing things with biased setups. The board use in coparrison to the intell chipsets board was horrible. Please, if you have the heart redo the tests with a BETTER mothorboard.

I hate to say it, but the reason it got held down was the mobo. That was a notorisly bad overclocker and guess what, it held true. You should have tried a higher end board. And I'm sick and tired of people reviewing things with biased setups. The board use in coparrison to the intell chipsets board was horrible. Please, if you have the heart redo the tests with a BETTER mothorboard.